About writing. And reading. And being published. Or not published. On working on being published. Tangents into the pop culture world to come. Especially about movies. And comic books. And movies from comic books.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

How To Be... a Demolition Expert

When I was a kid, firecrackers were never quite enough. I mean, a single firecracker is rather wimpy. Not that you can get them around here. I don't think my kids have ever even seen a firecracker, but we used to get big bundles of them every Christmas for quite a few years when I was in that 10-year-old range. We got enough of them to get plenty creative with them despite being told not to. But, other than sparklers, we never got any other kinds of fireworks, so we had to do something with them to achieve more spectacular results.

That usually meant experimenting with bundling them together, emptying them out, and blowing things up. Really, though, my favorite was just dropping them into a Coke can. Simple and loud.

I want to believe that people that go into demolition started out that way, playing with firecrackers, but bigger. But I don't know that.

Actually, a good background in construction is necessary if you want to be involved in de-struction. Tell that to any two-year-old, right? My oldest loved to knock things over when he was that age. The only reason ever to put something together, in his mind, was to knock it apart. I sort of imagine demolition people never growing out of that, but, again, I don't know that.

At any rate, it seems that many demolition experts say that hands-on experience is the best training for this particular job. You can get training, especially in the military, but you really need to do it to understand it. Be involved in it. Getting apprenticeships with construction companies that do the kind of demolition you're interested in can be a great way to get training.

The kind of demolition? Isn't demolition just blowing stuff up?

Well, no...

You can excavate, undermine, wrecking ball, explode, implode, and just plain old knocking it over. The demolition expert will need to be able to choose the best option for the job. Of course, building implosion is probably everyone's favorite. It's pretty spectacular and takes a lot of skill and a lot of preparation. Months worth, because any error can be disastrous. An error can include imploding on a day when the cloud cover is too low, which will direct the shock wave out into surrounding buildings rather than dissipate upwards. Yeah, I never considered that either. I would hate to have been the guy to have made that mistake the first time.
Here's one that went as planned:

So, although you can become a demolition expert without any proper schooling, the military is still one of the best ways to get trained in the field. They offer a broader range of experience and one more focused on explosives. If you really want to learn how to blow stuff up, the Army might be a good place to learn.

Yet another job that sounds so much more exciting when you're 5. I think this post needs to be forwarded to all of those rednecks on Youtube who chop down an old building/silo with an axe and then have it fall straight down onto them. It never fails. Every time.

The sparklers and fireworks brought me back to childhood days of Dad and brothers blowing up cans. What is it with guys and blowing things up?Then I watched the video ...unfortunately then I clicked on the 9/11 video there. Hard to take and 44 min. long, but it is a good one on the mistakes made.

Alex: Yeah, you should have read about some of the ones where it wrong and buildings fell on other buildings and things like that.

G_G: I wonder what you can blow up with duct tape?

ABftS: LOL Yeah, I, um, had friends back in the day given to that sort of thing. Well, not exactly friends. Let's just say the neighbors in my dorm during college did cow tipping on the weekends and leave it at that.

Damyanti: Well, I hope to see you! There are some good ones coming up. And I'm glad I could make you smile.

Jo: I did notice that, but I think it still fell in the zone they wanted it in.

Cool rundown. I never thought about what would be involved with becoming a demolitions expert. And having to consider things like cloud cover...it's a lot more complicated than I expected (and I didn't think it would be all that easy).

Aside from building sand cities and populating them with army men... and then burying M-80's in the sand and watching the destruction... I was always too scared to seriously try blowing stuff up. I'll happily leave that to the experts.

"The Evil That Men Do"

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About Me

I got a degree in English with the intent to write. Then, I got busy with other things, including getting married and having kids, and let the whole writing thing get away from me. 20 years later, I'm finally doing it. My first novel is currently available through Amazon on the Kindle and as a physical book.